


Maleficent 2:  Queen Aurora's Reign

by YesBothWays



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Dragons, F/F, Queen Aurora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 05:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13873977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: The sequel they'll never make.





	1. A second coronation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soofdope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soofdope/gifts).



> This work is gifted to Soofdope, who wrote the beautiful story "Once Upon A Wish." This entire store was born from a single detail from the first chapter of that story. Thanks also to Menzosarres who wrote "Innate Human Curiosity," which is epic. I took the idea of three-tiered Moors from that story.

            No one had ever before been subject to a ruler over both their kingdom and the Moors, and so the people waited in anticipation for Aurora's first decree. Spinning wheels were no longer illegal, they were made to know. This came as a quiet edict, an end to the royal decree. Then three long months passed with silence from the castle, a strange following to the noise and regality of her coronation. They were accustomed to a new ruler issuing a series of proclamations in their first days meant to characterize their coming rule. Many joked that perhaps Aurora's humble upbringing and her being raised under heavy threat from forces of dark magic had made her so meek that she might not ever issue any decrees at all. They might have to wait for a king to take the throne at her side to see governance once more.

            Finally, the first proclamation came. The festival of High Fairy would return. On the day, an outpouring of brightly colored cloth and ribbon poured forth from the castle along with golden mead and baked buns spiced and sweetened with honey. The festival had not been celebrated during King Stefan's rule, and children dashed about in wonderment. Their parents and grandparents poured into the streets, and all of manner of magic and mystical aspects of their own lives were openly celebrated.

            Among the crowds, Aurora herself passed unnoticed, wearing a common dress. Her laughter rang out, and she felt at home here in this human kingdom for the first time. She sat down on a step beside a little girl wearing fairy wings who was fashioning a pair of wings like her own for her little brother. His face was still puffy from recently weeping, and the girl seemed worried over Aurora's presence.

            "Hello," Aurora said. "What pretty wings! I wish I had a pair like that of my own!"

            "I'll make you some after I finish my brother's," the girl offered.

            "Thank you. That's very kind. Can I help you?" Aurora asked, and the girl nodded eagerly.

            They carefully made hoops out of common reeds tied with string and used thin fabrics issued from the castle to create the feathers. Aurora used a small coin to buy them lace and ribbons, and they added these to his wings and some more to his sister's. Aurora and the girl remarked on how beautiful his wings looked, and the boy stood grinning and ecstatic, stamping in excitement. His sister seemed relieved, her sisterly duty accomplished.

            "Should we help make you some now?" the girl asked.

            "Do you know, I think I shall be alright as I am," Aurora said.

            The girl looked considered her brother and turned back to Aurora.

            "Our parents said that boys should not wear ribbons and lace. Do you think it's very bad that I made him wings?" the girl asked, clearly considering any adult's opinion an absolute authority over her own.

            "The bravest person I have ever known wears a pair of wings, not just at festivals but all the time. Do you think your brother is brave?" Aurora asked.

            "He's just a little boy," the girl answered unsure and asked, "Who do you know?"

            "I know the Queen of the Fairies, or so she used to be called," Aurora said.

            "He is proud of his wings. I don't think it's wrong," the girl said.

            "Neither do I," Aurora said. "I think it's very brave for a person to want what makes them truly happy, even when people tell them it's not proper."

            The girl reached to shake Aurora's hand, taking on a very adult gesture. They made their farewell, and two winged children rushed off into the crowds. Aurora continued wandering through the streets. Today felt to Aurora like her real coronation in this kingdom. For three months, she had been cautious, quiet, observant, and mild in every manner of the word among the politicians of the castle. She told them that she wanted to know the manner of the kingdom before she issued any edicts or made choices of any real import. Their frustration faltered when they realized she was unmoving, and by the means they used to persuade her decisions when she knew that she would make none, Aurora decided what manner of men each of them were.

            The precise moment when she decided that practically everything she was being told, everything she was seeing was a performance was hard to decipher. Perhaps it was when she had incidentally discovered, after two months of her reign, that her father's former general who was often mentioned was not retired or away on some errand, as she had assumed. He was in the dungeons, stripped of his title, after her father grew enraged that he could not tear down the barrier of thorns and enter the Moors. His trial was not even yet scheduled.

            "Bring him to me. I would like to speak with him," Aurora had said, and one might have thought that she had asked everyone in the room to set the castle afire.

            The men who served as her appointed advisors tried to dissuade her, but Aurora merely waited for them to run out of wind and grow silent. The man they brought was half-starved and half-maddened from only three months in the dungeons. Her advisors had said he was "not fit for the presence of a queen," as if he would do her a harm with his wasted presence. She had the man sent at once to the halls of healing, and she came to find him there later on without anyone's permission. He recounted to her as much of the truth of her father's rule as he could.

            Over the following ten days, Aurora called for each prisoner locked within the dungeons. Some were incoherent. Others were carried out and nearly dead. She issued dozens of pardons and sent a handful of men to wait until they were well enough to be sent into the mountains to work as shepherds, a remote and thankless trade. A few violent men she sent away to be locked in rooms above ground, until she could determine what might be done with them.

            At times, the castle had felt to Aurora as if it were a prison. Especially when she lay within layers of neigh impenetrable, cold stone and doors shut fast with iron, her heart would constrict with a paralyzed terror, as if she were helpless to escape. Some nights, she walked the long stairs to the turrets and balconies just to breathe the night air and remind herself that her thoughts were simply running a bit wild, a little bit mad. The castle was the pinnacle of luxury – a place many wanted to get in. Still, the impression would come to her at times. Now, she knew that she had indeed lived over a wretched and inhuman prison for months with no one considering it enough to mention. The experience stayed with her. Her own strange, seemingly ill-fitted impression had actually been the truth.

            With a new skepticism in her heart, Aurora began to question the constant litany of warnings that the world of humankind and creatures of magic could never again entwine, that too much harm had been done. Her aunts had spoken often when she was a girl about the high days when fairies were lauded among the kingdom. Her mother, they said, had remember those days from when she was a girl. That was why they had been invited to the castle to celebrate her birth. Aurora did not believe that everyone feared and hated magic, and she issued her to decree to see if she could call the truth to the surface.

            Now, she walked the streets considering many artifacts that she recognized from dream nets to protection crystals to dried dragonberries that could be ground and made into a pain-relieving tonic quite dangerous to drink when not in pain. Every home it seemed to Aurora still knew at least a little something of magic. Children's toys were made to resemble bogwallers, the unique feather patterns of mallorens graced mantelpieces, and ancient symbols not derived from any human language were carved into bells and over doorways all about this kingdom. And the people were not afraid.   They were dancing, singing, sharing their joy.  

            A woman with a basket of small, woven clothes died a bright, wonderful yellow handed a bit of cloth to Aurora.

            "In honor of our Queen!" she said.

            The weave of the gifted cloth proved remarkable, and Aurora looked after the young woman, admiring both her skill and her generosity. Maleficent's curse had been a clever one. When King Stefan banished spinning wheels from the kingdom, he drastically weakened his own rule. As clothes and blankets wore out, no one could replace them fast enough. The cost of traded cloth tripled, then became ten times what it had been. Stefan was compelled to hand over vast portions of his royal wealth simply to keep cloth flowing into his kingdom. Now, cloth was seen as a treasure – one that had been returned to the people by Aurora's ascension to the throne.

            Aurora found an old woman sitting beside a spinning wheel placed outside her door, watching the passersby and crying in silent joy. Aurora bought a handful of roasted blacknuts – a rare treat that could be found only among the borderlands between the kingdom and the Moors. She came and knelt down beside the woman and offered her some. The woman took a single nut, smelled it, and ate it slowly.

            "I haven't had a blacknut in years," she said, as she took another from the tiny palmful Aurora held out to her.

            "Aren't they wonderful?" Aurora asked.

            "Truly, a taste as deep as the Moors," the woman said.

            "Does the celebration lift your spirits?" Aurora asked.

            "Oh, yes," the woman said. "I haven't seen a day like this since I was a little girl, and now it truly means something."

            "Did it hold less meaning to you when you were young?" Aurora asked.

            "No – it held less meaning overall. We would dance in celebration of the magic of the Moors, and then the King's army would march out to try and bring it home as a trophy. We buried our sons for years on end. Common folk know that you cannot capture the Moors. It's only the rich and powerful who get such ideas in their heads. Our new Queen, now, she will not suffer such foolishness. They say she was crowned Queen of the Moors by the hands of the Fairy Queen herself," she said.

            Aurora held the woman's hand for a moment, as they watched the celebration. When they had finished their blacknuts, she bid the woman a farewell. Aurora walked among the crowds, until night fell. Great fires were lit, and the embers rose up into the sky. Instruments were played, and the people danced. The day was beautiful beyond words to Aurora, and she hoped that she could convey something of what it had been like to Maleficent when next she saw her.

            The following day, Aurora rode out with a small party of royal guards. Among the streets she had wandered the day before, she slowed their pace. All signs of magic were hidden away. People bowed to her in deference and some placed flowers on the road before her. The cheer in the village was dismissed, and everything appeared common and dreadfully human. The world of magic that fed the spirits and bodies of the people of her kingdom had once again been tucked away into private spaces and dark corners, no longer displayed proudly and celebrated. The quiet haunted her spirits, as they left the village and rode on to the now open borderlands between their kingdom and the Moors.

            Aurora turned to look back. The same unease she had felt about the castle when she thought it a prison arose in her now. The people were ashamed of their love and longing for magic. The imprint of the kings before still marked their souls so deeply. Such heavy dominion would not be easily forgotten or cast aside. Fear had been woven right through the spirits of the people of her kingdom that distorted the right way of things in the world.

            As Maleficent appeared on the horizon, sweeping through the sky, Aurora took a deep breath. She had much she wished to discuss, and she hoped that Maleficent might be willing to join her on a trip she was very much afraid to make. Aurora half-expected her guard to depart of their own accord, then she remembered that they would not know what to do.

            "You can go now," Aurora said. "I'll be well defended."

            The guards were hesitant to go and terrified to stay. Aurora considered them in silence, and they grew uncomfortable. Each of them bowed and turned their horses away. Aurora got down off her horse when they were gone. She broke out running – something she had not done in far too long. She threw herself into Maleficent's open arms just as Maleficent stood up from the crouch of her landing. Aurora's laughter rang out in a manner quite unsuitable for a queen that suited herself just perfectly.


	2. The forgotten queen

            A servant opened the door when they knocked. To Maleficent's astonishment, he did not even notice her standing behind Aurora. He took one look at the queen standing upon the doorstep, and he turned with a shout and ran into the house.

            "Lord Ambrose! Lord Ambrose!" he called.

            "I suppose we should go in," Aurora said, stepping through the open door.

            "I think I'd better wait," Maleficent said.

            "Nonsense," Aurora said and reached out to snatch her hand and bring her inside. "I want to know what manner of man he is, and how he responds to you will help me decide far more than how he responds to me."

            A rather tall and stately man descended a set of creaking stairs. He had been blond as a young man, and his beard was a lovely mix of white and pale amber. Maleficent stood taller as he descended, but he barely gave her more than a glance. He came and took Aurora's hands softly, and in an old fashioned gesture placed a delicate kiss on her knuckles.

            "Queen Aurora," he said, only then did he turn to Maleficent.

            His considered her more with astonishment than open fear. He made a stately bow. Maleficent tipped her head to him in return.

            "Sir," Aurora said, "Please excuse our coming unannounced. The servants at the castle said that you knew my mother well."

            "Yes, very well, indeed," Ambrose said.

            "They confessed to me that you – that you might still be in possession of one of my mother's portraits," Aurora said.

            "Yes! Yes, come," he said.

            Ambrose led the two of them into a dim room. The walls were all lined with books, save one. Upon this wall between two bookcases hung a large, elegant portrait in a mismatched, plain frame. Aurora stepped close to consider her mother – a woman whose face she had never seen.

            The inhabitants of the castle had recounted to Aurora how when Queen Lora had died, King Stefan at once ordered that her portraits be taken away and burned. He said that he feared a curse, but no one could decipher what manner of enchantment he meant. They obeyed his orders out of loyalty or fear, but an old woman confessed to Aurora that she knew the man given the orders to burn the portraits. His name was George, and he had died of a fever some years before. He had felt a great devotion to the queen, and he knew of the love between her and an advisor named Ambrose, whom Stefan had dismissed to a forced retirement in the country the month Aurora was born. George took the finest painting, rolled it, and hid it in map case. This he sent away to Sir Ambrose, although he risked both their lives in the undertaking. He did not want her being forgotten, the servant, Alice, who recounted the story, told Aurora.

            Aurora wished that there were more signs of her inner life in her mother's expression. She stood in an elaborate gown, and there was something shy about her. But that was all.

            "I shall have it returned to the castle at once," Ambrose said.

            "You won't miss it?" Aurora asked in surprise.

            "I miss her. But nothing could ever make me forget her face. She is your mother, so her portrait rightly belongs to you," he said.

            "You're very kind," Aurora said.

            They were offered wine with bread and cheese. Aurora ate of these readily, as Maleficent kept near the windows, always watchful and uncomfortable in such a cramped space. Ambrose told Aurora what he could about her mother. He seemed to trouble to try and avoid much mention of Stefan or Lora's father, as he gave an account instead of a woman who seemed largely to be alone in her world.

            "She loved all living things, your mother. When she was a girl, her tutor told her that she would get to study butterflies. And when your mother realized that he meant dead creatures that were pinned to a board, she wept and would not look even at them. Her father was so angry, he had her locked in her rooms for three days."

            "How could she learn anything that way?" Aurora asked.

            "That is just the way we are all taught. All her life, she loved to go out into the fields and the woods to find butterflies. She drew them, all of them. It was remarkable. She could look at a butterfly for mere moments and depict its exact likeness with all the intricacies of the color and proportion.

            "Alice told me that it was my mother who sent me away," Aurora said.

            "Stefan always said that she was the reason the fairies were among the party when you were presented. She convinced him to send a message to those who lived in the Moors. She had hoped for peace at last, but it was not to be," Ambrose said.

            "And then I was entrusted to the fairies once I had been cursed," Aurora said.

            "Yes. It was your mother who persuaded Stefan to let them take you," Ambrose said, and he seemed to mourn deeply at the idea.

            Aurora came and placed her hands upon Ambrose's.

            "Then I owe her a great debt of thanks," Aurora said.

            They made their farewell soon after. Aurora led them on wandering paths towards the Moors by way of the edge of the village rather than cutting through the center. She seemed lost in her thoughts.

            "You're awfully quiet," Maleficent said to her at last.

            "I have a secret to share with you," Aurora said.

            "Oh?"

            "I believe that man is my real father."  

            Maleficent stopped walking. Aurora let her horse amble forward. She turned back and then led her horse gently around. The affection in Ambrose's tone towards Aurora and Queen Lora both shone out in Maleficent's mind. That was why they had come, not to see a painting but to see Ambrose.

            "I have no proof of it, obviously," Aurora said. "But there was a carefulness and an eagerness among the servants. They knew something, or thought something that I never could get them to say. And they were awfully eager that I should go and meet him to bring back my mother's portrait. No one even suggested that I have her repainted from their own memories of her."

            It had taken many years for Stefan and Lora's child to be born. Aurora's mother had died only two years later without producing another heir. They continued on in silence for a long time.

            "I suppose I will never know," Aurora said.

            "You might know," Maleficent said. "At least, I know of one source of truth you could try."  

            Maleficent led them deep into the Moors. There they found a chain of long lakes shining a brilliant shade of blue. The water moved with soft winds and reflected the sky, rocks, and trees that surrounded the water quite beautifully. Maleficent led them along the edge and then a short distance into the trees. They came to a place of carven, ornate stones where stood a pool. The water was shining black and reflected nothing above.

            "Ask what you wish to see, and the Deep Water will show you," Maleficent told Aurora.

            Aurora got down from her horse. She was hesitant. Still, she came near the water.

            "Will you look with me?" Aurora said.

            "I will not see anything. The water will show the truth only to the one who asks. Take care, for if you do not truly wish to see the answer, the spirit in the waters may be deeply offended. And know that you only get one question, until the pool freezes over and melts once more," Maleficent said.

            "I do want to know," Aurora said, and she sat down and leaned in over the pool and asked with confidence, "Who was my real parent?"

            Light shone and broke out of the inky black water. Aurora looked so closely that she leaned towards the pool. When the light at last went out, Aurora was still looking. She leaned back at last. Maleficent came to sit beside her.

            "Well," Maleficent said. "What did you see?"

            "I saw my mother," Aurora said.

            "Not Stefan or Ambrose?"           

            "No. Only her."

            "Perhaps you could come back and ask who your father was in the spring," Maleficent said, and Aurora remained quiet with her thoughts.

            "No," Aurora said at last and stood up. "I asked the right question, though I didn't mean to when I did. This is the answer I needed. Magic has a way of… turning right, you know."

            "It does for you," Maleficent answered, and Aurora reached down to take her hand and bring her to her feet.

            "She was alive," Aurora told Maleficent as they wandered on strange paths through the Moors. "In the vision the waters showed to me. It was not a still image, it was her. Queen Lora riding a horse through the streets of the village, and the people were bringing her gifts of flowers."

            "I gave to Stefan a frond of black poppies that he brought to offer the princess and so first bought his way into the castle and a position as a servant," Maleficent said.

            "I never knew that," Aurora said. "Black poppies are exceedingly rare."

            "Mm. Exceedingly."  

            "I understand your curse now. You undermined Stefan's lineage, his authority, and his wealth all at once. A slow, creeping assault on his rule. It was brilliant actually."  

            "It was horrible. Because of me, your mother never knew you."

            "That's not true. My aunts told me that she used to ride to the borderlands in disguise at night. She would hold me all night, they said, and I never once cried. She would always leave before dawn," Aurora said. "I do have one question, though."

            "Yes?"

            "Why did you not just kill Stefan? Surely, it would have been easy for you."

            "Yes, well," Maleficent said and her wings moved in an agitated way, "As well he knew, even as a young man. He was afraid of me, and we wove a magic together that would stop us ever killing one another. I knew he was afraid of me. I just did not know why."

            "You're still ashamed, aren't you?" Aurora asked.

            "What?"

            "That he betrayed you. That you were deceived."

            Maleficent did not know what to say to this.

            "It's not your fault, you know," Aurora said. "Your heart was pure and unguarded, and he was the one who made shameful choices. Do you know I found his old guardian in the dungeons? The man didn't even know that the boy, Stefan, that he had hired on as a hand all those years ago was the one who became king. He was just taken and placed in a cell one day with no explanation. Can you imagine despising a man that much? It must have been awful the way he was raised to make him that angry. But he never became kind because he suffered. I think that's strange. Don't you?"

            "Not all wounds heal properly. Especially those dealt to the spirit."

            "I suppose so. Ah! I wish I could see her again! My mother, she was beautiful, and she was happy. She was just the sort of person I should like for a friend. I wish I knew her."

            "That gives me an idea," Maleficent said.

            That night, Aurora took hundreds of stairs up to a high turret. There, she shushed the guard, as Maleficent descended. They made their way down the stairs together into the quiet halls and into a set of rooms long uninhabited. Queen Lora's rooms were tended simply out of devotion. No one had slept in the bed in fourteen years. An older servant, Alice, was waiting there for them.

            "Goodness," Alice said looking over Maleficent.

            "Alice, this is my dear friend, Maleficent," Aurora said.

            "The dragon herself," Alice murmured, and she started when Maleficent bowed her head to her.

            "Well, the maker of the dragon, really," Aurora said.

            "I'm sure I know nothing about it, there are so many rumors and wild stories flying about. Anyways, what did you want to see, your majesty?" Alice asked.

            "A mirror," Maleficent said. "Don't think which mirror she would have looked in most often. Think of which mirror might have seen her the most, even when she was not thinking of its presence being there."

            Alice considered and moved about the room. Eventually, she brought a framed mirror with a bit of thick fabric draped over it. She drew the cover away.

            "This one. It always hung there on the wall," Alice said.

            Maleficent came and worked her magic over the glass. Aurora knelt down before the mirror. She placed her fingers to the shimmering glass.

            "It's her!" Aurora said, clearly thrilled.

            Aurora witnessed as time unfurled and lurched in the images in the mirror. She saw her mother as a young woman – being dressed by servants, alone in her rooms, sitting with a lyre, reading books. In rapt attention, she read every nuance of movement and expression she could gather. Her mother was lonely, and she was sad. But she also relished her solitude, and she seemed easily given to a deep joy that would break the surface suddenly and shine out radiant. There were nights when her mother would ready for bed only to leave her rooms, and Aurora feared her mother was with Stefan and hoped that she was with Ambrose. She saw her mother's body change, as she became pregnant. The rise in her happiness could not be missed. Then she saw her mother grow quiet and thoughtful, often standing at her windows and looking out into the distance towards the Moors. She saw her mother grow ill, and she witnessed the constant care with which the servants tended her. They surrounded her bed and held her hand, until she died.

            Aurora cried at the sight, and Alice was startled. The magic flared out. Maleficent turned the mirror away and sat it against the wall.

            "Don't cry, your majesty," Alice was saying, even as she gave Maleficent a suspicious and accusatory look.

            Aurora reached for Maleficent's hand, and Maleficent pulled her up into an embrace while she cried herself out. Alice watched this in silence, softened. Aurora recovered quickly, and she put her hand to her chest.

            "Thank you," Aurora said to Maleficent.


	3. The wild heart of a queen

            "I think I've finally got it all figured out," Aurora told Maleficent.

            In the midst of winter, they were alone among the Moors. Fires were burning low in a circle around them, and Maleficent's magic whipped against the flames and drew the heat inwards to spiral around them. Aurora sat roasting mixed nuts on coals she had raked out of the fires.

            "Oh?" Maleficent said.

            "Yes, I think so," Aurora said. "I suppose the cold has given me fortitude of mind. When I first came to the castle, I thought it felt like a prison. And do you know, it was. The horrors of the dungeons crept up to haunt us all. Now, they are gone, and each room feels like a misplaced home. There are enough bricks in the castle to build homes for practically every family in this kingdom. I had a mind to have it torn down.

            "Then wedding proposals started flooding in. My advisors considered each one a coded threat of war. Kings in the lands beyond ours are all terribly aware that an unwed queen holds the throne, and they are jockeying to take possession of these lands. Some would send their sons as prince suitors, and others would offer me their own hand in order to merge our lands into those they already hold under their sway.

            "A cold, damp, ominous castle more suited to imprisonment than living stands as our only defense. It's not built to keep us in but to keep them out. The stronghold is the only thing that keeps conquest at bay. Until I marry, there will be no peace, only an endless, eloquently flattering series of threats."

            "That seems rather a miserable situation," Maleficent said.

            "King Roland stands the greatest threat of all. He is coming in a fortnight, no doubt to offer me his hand. Even if I marry a prince, they say Roland is likely to march on our kingdom. It seems he had a mind to marry me some years ago, and they would have me marry him. It's all the royal lineage they're worried over. No one cares whether it's me, you see?

            "So all I have to do is marry, bear a child, and then I can run away to the Moors. As long as I do it carefully, perhaps make it look like I have died, no one will ever come after me."

            "You cannot be serious?" Maleficent said.

            "I am serious. That's all they really want from me. That's my duty, I suppose, as the last living member of the royal house. I will not live like my mother – trapped in that palace, lonely, always aware of my powerlessness. I aim to be free, and I will be. This is the fastest way out. I can't take the kingdom apart. So I will hand it down, just as fast as I can."

            Maleficent came and sat beside Aurora.

            "What do you think it would have been like if Queen Lora had been able to rule as a sovereign queen?" Maleficent asked.  

            Aurora scoffed a laugh at the idea. Maleficent was serious. So Aurora thought hard on this.

            "I think the people would have been happier," Aurora said.

            "What if you were to rule as a sovereign queen?" Maleficent asked.

            "And stay there forever?" Aurora said. "I don't think I could manage it. I don't belong there. I feel it always."

            "I think I know what you mean," Maleficent said.

            "To be always cold, always afraid, always under constant scrutiny and pressure, to have everyone always leveraging to control you – it's simply miserable," Aurora said. "Why can it not be like life here in the Moors? "           

            "Perhaps it could be," Maleficent said, "If someone had the vision and power to make it so. When I look about the Moors, I still see all looking to me in fear and obedience. It's the imprint of a human world, a world of hierarchy and dominance where some accumulate wealth and power while others starve, and I let it infect my heart and permeate these lands. Because I did not know how else to keep us all safe."

            "How can the people of the Moors keep safe? How do they even get enough to eat?" Aurora asked.

            "They work together. They're not fools, you know. They'd be glad to tell you if you want to know," Maleficent promised her.

            "I've seen so much beauty that others have not. Surely I can bring some to my people," Aurora said. "Perhaps King Roland will be a good man."

            "Maybe," Maleficent said. "But kings all tend to think in the same ways, and eventually, they destroy their lands and go out to steal someone else's. The truth is that the strength of your people is your stronghold, the strength of the land is your strength. Weaken either, you weaken yourself, no matter what storehouses of grain and fortresses of stone you build. I promise I will always be there to defend you, whenever you need me. But I don't pretend to know what you should do. Trust your heart, Aurora."

            "My heart is here in the Moors," Aurora said, and Maleficent put her arm around Aurora's shoulders in silent solidarity.

           When a fortnight had passed, Aurora sat upon her throne and watched as her advisors bowed and flattered King Roland. As he crossed the throne room all dressed in armor with a party of his finest warriors about him, Aurora sat considering him. His arrogance even here in a place other than his kingdom was astonishing. Some wild magic sewn into Aurora's heart during her childhood among the Moors had been sprouting of late. In the days before, when her advisors rattled on, Aurora found herself unable to hear them, instead imagining another world in her mind. Beside her throne lay a puppy she had chosen from the kennels. Aurora named her Echo. She watched now as Echo tried to scratch her ear, and her gangly limbs made her topple over. Aurora laughed as King Roland came near, and he was taken aback slightly. He was enormous and carried himself as a man who believed that everyone he met would bow to him without question. Aurora felt the seeds that had sprouted in her heart burst forth all at once into thorns.

            "Good Queen Aurora, I am humbled to stand in the presence of your beauty," King Roland said with his fist over his breast and a partial bow.

            Aurora got up from her throne. Across the room, her father's former General, Timothy, stood in his armor. Aurora had reinstated him the day before. His head was still bowed a little, his spirit injured from his time in the dungeons.

            "You flatter me, your majesty. I believe you will certainly find my dress plain and my movements wild and untamed," Aurora said.

            "On the contrary, you are more than I could have imagined," Roland said.

            "Really?" Aurora said. "I have to wonder then what it is that you see when you look at me. I imagine it's something akin to what a hound would see walking into an untended larder with a cow recently hung up to dry age."

            "Your majesty, you mistake me," King Roland said, after a long pause to choose his words. "I have come all this way to offer you peace and protection."

            "Do you wonder what I see when I look at you?" Aurora asked and did not wait for an answer. "I see a man dressed for war, surrounded by his best warriors, who invited himself into my home in order to offer me – what was it then? – peace and protection? And should I deny his offer, I believe that would mean in his mind that I have accepted his unspoken offer of challenge and war.

            "And I must say, as humorous as I must appear, a young girl taken from a hovel among the borderlands who was raised by fairies, I find his unguarded appearance as he stands before me quite humorous also. Here the man stands in a room blackened by dragon's fire, where a terrible curse was placed on me as I lay, only a helpless bade. And yet here I sit upon a throne, unafraid.

            "I dare say that such a man has made the gravest mistake that can be made in affairs of war. He has not prepared himself to meet the unknown. You have no estimation of my power, King Roland, not because it does not exist, but because I have yet to put it on display. And you have walked freely into the place where I alone rule without even a guard set to watch the doors at your back."

            At this, the doors behind them shut. King Roland and his men all turned to look behind them. Maleficent approached them silently. The men formed a circle around their king. Maleficent merely laughed and passed them by, and the threat of magic bristled from every point.

            King Roland's men began to speak up in outrage, but he and Aurora kept their eyes locked upon one another's. Roland raised his hand to silence his men. They responded at once with silence and simply stood, angered by Maleficent's look of sheer boredom as she considered them.

            "I apologize, your excellency," King Roland said with a far more genuine and deeper bow to Aurora. "I stand a fool in an arena where I should know mastery. Forgive me if I have offended you."

            "I would have you for a friend still, if you're a man to be trusted on my terms," Aurora said.

            "And what would those be?" Roland asked.

            "Commerce. We both have navy ships on the Risen Seas, ever avoiding one another while defending against pirates. Why should they not seek one another out instead? You have iron and stone. We have wool and wood. If we can set a fair price on trade, perhaps we could both benefit from this meeting. If you're willing to discuss terms, you are invited to dinner," Aurora said.

            "I would be honored," King Roland said.

            He bowed once more and departed with his men. Even as he left, Aurora saw him scanning the throne room. He was taking stock of their defenses, she knew, and the next time he saw an opportunity, he would test them.

            The moment the door closed behind him, all six of Aurora's appointed royal advisors rushed forward. The boldest among them, Charles, burst out in anger. Aurora turned to him with one eyebrow raised and could not help by smile as he attempted to chide her, as if he imagined himself her schoolmaster.

            "What dread spell could have compelled you to such foolish action? King Roland offended! You put us all at risk of open war with your insolence."

            "I respect your concern, Charles. However, your fear of King Roland and your admiration for him would both see us all bowing at once to his will. This castle will be fraught with such risks for some time. So you will be happy to hear that I am retiring you to a quiet life in the country. All of you, in fact, save for William."

            The men all stood blinking in astonishment. They paused blatantly questioning whether Aurora had the power to do this, and she turned to Timothy, her General.

            "Timothy, if you would be so kind as to ensure the safe passage of these gentlemen to their estates," Aurora said.

            Timothy at once led his men in escorting the retired advisors away. William stood alone, completely astonished. He seemed to be struggling not to smile. Aurora knew that he had kept his position only by keeping quiet when outnumbered by the others. Stefan had threatened to retire or kill William several times.  

            "Don't worry. I have five others in mind already. You'll remember one, Sir Ambrose. You served together some years ago," Aurora said, and William bowed softly.

            By the end of only two years, Aurora had established herself as a sovereign queen. The people had never seen a ruler like Aurora for Queen Aurora's mind remained focused ever on the same concerns that occupied the people of the Moors and common folk of the village: water, shelter, food, warmth, safety, and joy. She made her mark on the kingdom not through conquest or commerce but in designing locks, channels, and ponds that would water the kingdom even in times without rains. Orchards rose and crops that were tended in strange ways. The bare earth and parallel rows that once defined the landscape of the kingdom were transformed into organized tangles of trees, berries, vegetables, grains, and livestock that formed lands that resembled more the untamed woods than the farms before.

            Queen Aurora's lack of interest in accruing riches and power contrasted starkly with her concern for the kingdom's capacity for defense. She studied warfare under the finest tutors. She implemented a citizen army, and she trained and armed every adult in her kingdom. Her old advisors wrote her letters warning her of immanent uprisings and insurgencies, but Aurora was not afraid.

            Aurora's greatest sorrow came not from her people but from her distance from the Moors, a sorrow that was to deepen in her eighteenth year. With Queen Aurora's rule established and unthreatened, Maleficent intended to depart for the mid Moors – vast lands of deep magic unfit for any among humankind. She told Aurora that her own magic was simply grown too wild and her hold over the high Moors too deep. She wanted to find a place where she belonged, and Aurora understood.

            Upon their last meeting, Aurora gave to Maleficent the gift of a shining pendant. Her aunts had helped her to make this parting gift, she told Maleficent. The perfectly cut diadem was imbued with magic.

            "They put my love into this gemstone. So that my love for you will keep you company in the dark of the mid Moors. And this way you will not forget me," Aurora said.

            "I would never forget you," Maleficent promised her, then she opened up her hand over the top of her staff and plucked free the shining orb. Another, clear orb formed in its place. "Here. Take this gift in return. If ever you should have need of me, even among the tangle of the deep Moors, you could call me out by way of this."

            The two embraced one last time. Queen Aurora turned back to the kingdom even as Maleficent turned towards the deeper Moors. The two women parted ways, not knowing when they would meet one another again or what they find when they did.


	4. Dragon's fire might undo all

            Night lingered across the mid Moors, extending the ephemeral atmospheres of dawn and dusk into many hours. In the distinct, strange light created from moonlight mingling with sunlight sent spilling over the edge of the earth, abundant forms of life arose. These were filled with a dancing energy, a magic known only by those in the less Moors and the lands beyond in a fleeting intuitive sense of possibility. Captivating, at times disorienting and maddening, the company of these deeper moorland creatures allowed Maleficent a sense of ease she had long forgotten. Their magic was potent and untamed, akin to her own. Such magic often went wild and tended towards destructive ends as readily as creative.

            Near her heart, a piercing light burned ever in the dim light. This was Aurora's gift: a pendant that would shine as long as Aurora's love for Maleficent lasted. When the light dimmed, Maleficent told herself when she first passed into the mid Moors, she would return and rekindle the love between the two of them. The light burned steady and without a doubt brightened over the years. A realization came over Maleficent slowly. _They put my love into this gemstone,_ Aurora had said, believing it to be her love for Maleficent that illuminated the pendant. But it was not the nature of love to grow with distance. With the fading of memory came a fading of emotion. The gem shined with Aurora's love – simply this, a capacity always strong that grew only stronger over time. By this, Maleficent knew that Aurora was well. She believed herself largely forgotten – a story faded into the past.

            But she was not forgotten. At the very beginnings of dawn, before Maleficent had even built up a fire, the orb atop her staff blazed out in shards of light that pulled apart the inky night air. She reached out her hand and called the staff to her at once. Aurora's face shone in the clear glass of the orb – more mature and obscured by the bending of the light. Her familiar voice jarred Maleficent with its strangeness for Aurora spoke with urgency and authority, not a hint of playfulness or youthfulness to be felt.

            "Maleficent," Queen Aurora spoke from across a great distance, "If you can hear me, please come. Please, help us. An army marches upon us with a trio of dragons with them - dragons that carry a dreadful magic."

            Maleficent barely heard the last of Aurora's message for the rush of wind as she lifted off with a powerful drop of her wings. The distance was great, but her magic had grown stronger, deeper amidst the mid Moors. By nightfall, she was crossing over the less Moors, lands that she knew so well. The mere shape of them seen below set her heart aching with remembrance. She made straight for the castle.

            Just as she was about to descend, an aura that felt to Maleficent akin to a piercing light away to the west caught her focus. She rose up and lingered on the strong winds. She felt that indeed an incredible magic roiled high above the earth carrying a weight and tangle of power unlike any she had known among humankind or the high Moors. An ominous power loomed on the horizon, and drew nearer even as she watched.

            Bells sounded below. The noise was light and frenzied, joyful as the announcement of a wedding or a birth. As she watched, doors opened on the turrets, and a great set of windows opened out that she knew led to the great hall. Maleficent recalled shattering through these windows many years ago, as she swept through them now and into a room that still smelled of smoke from a dragon's fire by her keen senses.

            A handful of guards lined the hall, and she braced. They were overjoyed, however, and clambering to find someone – ringing bells and calling though opened doors into the halls. People poured into the room, and Maleficent found herself backing towards the wall with her staff held in her hand. She had not felt the presence of humankind for years. Their joy came in a frenzy of desperation that she did not like to feel. This was the sort of love that could readily turn into hatred. They were fragile, unpredictable, untrustworthy.

            The room quieted at once when a woman passed through one of the doors with five great, massive hounds about her legs and a cluster of advisors and generals behind her. By her spirit alone, Maleficent knew this was Aurora. Yet she did not know this woman at all. Aurora carried herself as a sovereign queen, her gait gracious and precise, her bearing filled with authority and certainty. Elegantly wrought armor graced her body, and her breastplate displayed the emblem of the royal house.

            Aurora stopped and considered Maleficent from far away. She could sense at once the threat building in her, the wariness.

            "Empty this room," Aurora said simply.

            All filed out without protest. Only the dogs remained, considering Maleficent with a calm curiosity. Queen Aurora crossed the room, and Maleficent came to meet her. Her dogs came with her, soft and attentive. Aurora's eyes caught on the pendant shining upon Maleficent's chest. She had drawn off one of her gloves as she came near.

            "You've come," Aurora said, and Maleficent got a hint of relief and fear buried beneath her gentle tone.

            Maleficent seemed to have forgotten how to speak. Aurora seemed to grow self-conscious and not to notice her silence.

            "I'm covered in iron," Aurora said, just as if she were covered in mud and filth.

            Her eyes came to Maleficent's. A gentle smile moved across her face that deepened, and Maleficent recognized the characteristic depth of the tenderness and the incredible ease with which she felt joy were still there, kept away in some deep place. Aurora held out her hand, and Maleficent took it, careful to keep her fingers away from the iron gauntlet on her forearm.

            "This time tomorrow, we will be at war. We're laying our plans. Will you come?" Aurora asked.

            "Lead the way, my Queen" Maleficent said.

            Aurora scoffed a bit of a laugh at this. For some reason, when Maleficent spoke, the dogs had taken this for a sign and come forward to greet her. Maleficent let them consider her scent and ran her hand over their heads. Their loyalty to Aurora felt akin to her own, but she felt estranged from their intimacy with this woman, as they read her expressions and guessed her intent. One led the way as soon as Aurora turned to a doorway.

            As Aurora's advisors and generals held council, Maleficent stood at large windows covered with diamond panes of glass and looked out. The dogs sat about her in a half circle, a sight that clearly perplexed everyone who saw, as they were accustomed to seeing the dogs keep close to Aurora alone.

            Much was known of their situation and yet little. King Roland's demand for the throne and proclamation of war had long ago been received. Rumors and then official accounts of the dragons that fought in his service had reached them weeks before. Aurora had been deeply skeptical, as the magic of dragons was very hard to separate from their mountains and their own kind. Accounts of the decimation they caused were real enough, whatever the nature of the magic King Roland held in his sway.

            At a sharp tap on the glass, Maleficent opened the pane and let a crow inside. The others gave only a curious glance and went back to their discussion. Talk strayed ever away from the dragons, as plans were laid for the armies of both the kingdom and Moors. At last, Aurora's general, Timothy, brought the matter to the forefront.

            "Let me take care of the dragons," Maleficent said at once, stroking the crow's feathers.

            Queen Aurora made it clear that this closed the conversation. All the others departed to distribute orders and clarify plans before retiring to a sleepless night. When they were gone, Diaval transformed himself into a man by way of magic Maleficent had imbued into him when he came to find her amidst the mid Moors. She smiled to see it unfaded still. He and Aurora hugged, obviously accustomed to seeing one another. He smiled at Maleficent and reached to take her hand, obviously astonished by the depths of the magic he could sense roiling from her body.  

            "You have word from the enemy camps?" Aurora asked him.

            "Indeed," he said. "No sign of dragons. But I did see something very unusual. Three fairies, I dare say near as grand as yourself, keep to his inner circle," Diaval said.

            "Winged? Possessing magic?" Maleficent asked.

            "Their wings were concealed, but their shape gave them away. The scent of magic rolled off them like stench from a dog," Diaval said, and he glanced at Aurora who ignored his jab at dogs, focused instead on his message.

            "Why would fairies fight for a king?" Aurora questioned aloud.

            "They wouldn't," Maleficent said, "Unless they were forced. Tell me, did they speak to one another? The fairies? Or were they quiet in one another's company?"

            "I did not hear them say a word to one another in perhaps an hour of watching," Diaval said.

            "They're held by some spell," Maleficent said. "Fairies are notoriously chatty among their own kind."

            "Maybe they're just like you," Diaval said, and at a glance from both Maleficent and Aurora, he added, "Reticent, I mean, is all."

            "Highly unlikely," Maleficent said.

            "I'll keep watch the rest of the night, but I doubt I'll have much else to report," Diaval said.

            "Here," Maleficent said. "They might recognize you."

            She spun up a web of enchantment in her hand and blew this over Diaval. He shook himself, as if he were still in bird form shaking his feathers. Then he adjusted his coat.

            "Won't more magic make me more likely to stand out to them?" Diaval asked.

            "Trust me," Maleficent said with a wink. "I've been in the dark for a long time."

            Diaval gave a small bow of appreciation, and Maleficent opened the window to let him out even as he transformed and departed.

            "I should go and help the others," Aurora said. "Tomorrow, you must keep above the fields. King Roland's iron workers are the best in all lands. His kingdom's wealth was won selling weapons of iron. I don't want you risking your life to fight common foes."

            "My people will be fighting amidst the fields," Maleficent said, meaning those from the high Moors.

            Aurora gazed hard at Maleficent and then leaned heavily into one arm on the stout table at the center of the room. She considered and stood up straight again.

            "I cannot give you any orders, but I am asking you to keep away from the battle below. Roland is no fool. He will not have forgotten you. I daresay he planned this siege with you at the very forefront of his mind. You mustn't allow yourself to become divided among foes. Look only to the dragons and keep away from the treachery of iron among the fields."

            "He is not prepared for my magic," Maleficent said.

            Aurora accepted this in silence, only because she had no other choice.  She went to see to her army. Maleficent realized that she ought to go and see to her own people, as well.


	5. War of enchantments

            As the sun sank into the horizon behind them, the armies of the kingdom and Moors watched the enemy army cover the final distance between them. They were equipped with terrible machines of war. Above them in the clouds, three dragons were circling just within sight. When the army stopped and formed ranks, they began pounding their shields with their swords and spears, and a cheer rang out as King Roland rode to the front of their ranks .

            Queen Aurora also rode out to the front of the army of their kingdom and the Moors. She took out her sword, and even as King Roland rallied his men, Aurora's voice rang out across the dim field. No sign of fear showed in her tone, yet there was something akin to remorse.

            "King Roland believed that he would take this kingdom and the Moors without so much as raising his fist. He has never forgiven us for remaining free, when he believes we should rightly bow to his dominion, our lands and our labor turned to feed his greed, our sons trained into cruelty among his armies, our daughters taken to his bed and cast aside. I will never bow to such a king. In defense of all that we love in these lands, let us send him home empty-handed this day."

            In silence, all among the two armies raised their weapons in service of Aurora's declaration. She turned and raised her sword to the opposing army. Queen Aurora then turned to Maleficent.

            Maleficent walked softly to the Queen and passed beyond. The enemy army grew quiet. Dreadful cries rang high in the air, as the three dragons recognized Maleficent's presence and dove to challenge her. Maleficent raised her staff, and she transformed before the eyes of all among the fields into a dragon enormous and terrible beyond anything they had imagined. The beat of her wings as she rose into the air sent many to their knees.

            As soon as Maleficent had gone, Queen Aurora gave the signal. Her armies charged. Maleficent rolled in the air and came down low enough to send out angry balls of fire imbued with magic to shatter the war machines, even as they began to make their first shots. The dragons descended upon her, and she was soon embroiled in a tangle of wings, fangs, tails, talons, fire, and potent magic.

            The three fought all together, and yet Maleficent found their magic unpredictable and jagged as shards of broken glass. They were not truly in unison. They were compelled by some other will than their own. Maleficent found her will to challenge them threatened, and she broke free of them and rose up into the air to gain some distance. She had never been at war with her own kind before, and these were not following the compulsion of their own spirits. She sent out a burst of magic set to break any enchantments held over them, and indeed she felt the force meet with a bristling challenge. The force that bound them won out. Their fight took the form of a chase with Maleficent attempting to free the others, even as they attempted to tear at her throat, her chest, her wings.

            Queen Aurora saw the change that took place in nature of the combat in the air. A terrible fear rose in heart. This was the treachery that King Roland had planned for Maleficent – an enemy she would be loath to destroy. In this way, he knew he could induce her to lower her guard and resist an outpouring of her power. At that moment, Diaval flew down in a commotion. He transformed into a man and ran to Aurora's side. She had to raise her arm to stay one of her guards.

            "Aurora! King Roland's breastplate bears an emblem. It's not his seal. I have seen magic shining out of the carved lines just as Maleficent's magic struck the dragons above. That's the source of the magic. I'm certain of it."

            Queen Aurora got down from her horse at once. Her guards were made terribly anxious by this. She unhitched the saddle from her horse.

            "Take me there," Aurora said to Diaval.

            He nodded and transformed at once into a great, black horse. Aurora threw her saddle onto his back and fasted the clasps. She drew out her sword and turned to her men. They were shouting in protest, as she was banned by law from entering the field of combat until the utmost need.

            "This is the utmost need!" Aurora cried and rose up into the saddle. "If you want us to win this and any of us to survive this day, then follow me!"

            Diaval charged. In the air above, the three enchanted dragons had their claws sunken into Maleficent's body. She roared and twisted, breaking free, and she snatched one by the throat. The dragon's throat was before her, and yet she raked her claws along the scales in a desperate search for any feel of the invasive magic within. Teeth sank into the joint of one of her wings, and she was embroiled in struggle. A dread realization began to dawn in her heart. She would have to kill them and even gathering the will would shatter her heart.

            Aurora's band of warriors broke through the enemy ranks. They met King Roland's guard with a cry of challenge. King Roland laughed to see Aurora come to challenge him directly. He rode past his guards to meet her in combat.

            "Foolish girl! You want your death now rather than at the end of all this?" he jeered.

            Aurora could hardly hear him for her focus. She met him blow for blow, and Diaval pivoted and moved with the intelligence of a magical creature to give her the advantage. Her swordpoint struck Roland's chest, not hard enough to break through his breastplate. The light of imbued magic shone out from the nick in the emblem on his chest.

            Dragon cries rent the air. Aurora knew in some manner beyond reason that the voice she heard was Maleficent's. King Roland's men were surrounding her and Diaval. She leapt down and called to him to flee. He transformed into a crow and called loudly to her. When he saw that she did not mean to flee, he turned himself into a wolf and buried his fangs in King's Roland's horse's throat. The horse reared, and Roland fell. Diaval kept the horse away, as Roland rose to his feet.

            Queen Aurora met King Roland in ferocious combat. His men dodged in and injured her. Still, she surged forward. At last, the two were entangled, and she drew a dagger. She plunged this into a shining gemstone set in the midst of emblem upon his chest. Cracks ran out, and the breastplate shattered with great force. Both of them were sent sprawling onto the field. Roland's men ran to him, even as he breathed his last – his chest crushed by the release of magic.

            The voices of three dragons rang out in a piercing cry of victory. Roland's men turned and charged at Queen Aurora, but her own men were at her side now. She was falling, wounded by many blows as she sought only to get to Roland.

            The earth shook as Maleficent landed nearby. Roland's men fell back, and Aurora's men rushed forward to save her from the dragon in their midst. Diaval had come, and he transformed into a man. He waved his hands in the air.

            "Don't stop her, you fools!" he cried.

            They seemed to gain their senses. Aurora's General, Timothy, had his arms about her. Aurora had struggled to one knee, and he let her sink down. The burning eyes of the dragon came, and Timothy backed away in both awe and terror.

            Maleficent took a deep breath, the heat shining from her chest. She opened her mouth and breathed out not a stream of fire but of living magic that poured over Aurora. Once it passed, Aurora rose to her feet.

            Queen Aurora came forward, bloodied but no longer bearing any wounds. She held her sword behind her, away from the dragon before her. She reached with the other hand to touch between the beast's burning eyes and leaned her forehead into the hard scales beside.

            This sight was enough to stop the fighting among the fields. Three dragons circled overhead, moving in unison. Even the least wise could feel the changing the broken spell and released magic sent ringing through the air. Maleficent turned her face up to the others, and then she rose up into the air.

            All four dragons flew away to the west. In a terrible descent, they tore down the walls of King Roland's castle and dug out his moats. They plucked catapults and trebuchets from the turrets. They left only the bridge and the walls in tact. Next, they circled to the iron mines. These were buried under piles of stone caused by the pounding of their tails and the force of the entwinement of their great magic.

            At last, they landed together beside a lake far from Roland's castle. They all transformed into their right forms, and Maleficent found herself with three dark fairies from the deep Moors. They were old, and their magic was weakened by bondage and distance from their lands. Together in unison, they bowed to Maleficent in thanks.

            "A hundred years imprisoned, and now we are free thanks to you!" one of them said.

            "I told you we were venturing too far from our home!" another said.

            "A hundred years?! It was two hundred!" the last said.

            "Regardless, we are grateful to you," the first said.

            "Surely, you were not held captive by men for so long," Maleficent said.

            "Psht! Men!" one of them said and spat.

            "Men are weak," another said.

            "We've been locked in a tree all these years, until Roland had it cut down," the first said.

            "We should have been freed! But he kept the seal in tact," another said.

            "Roland wore it on his breastplate, as if he were our owner!" the last said.

            "Well, you have been liberated by Queen Aurora," Maleficent said.

            "We are honored," one said, and they all bowed to her.

            "I am Maleficent. Queen Aurora is a human queen," Maleficent explained.

            "A human!" one said.

            "Imagine that!" the other finished.

            "Still, we are grateful. And we are going home," the last said.

            "Yes! Yes!" they all agreed.

            "If you ever come to the deep Moors, ask for the Three Sisters," one said.

            "We'll keep you fed and housed," another said.

            "Mmm, yes, and deeply caught up in trouble," the other said.

            They rose up into the air and sped off into the east. Maleficent laughed and then listened to the stillness of the night. The cool air moved across her skin, vivid and beautiful after the heat and misery of the battle. Her thoughts went to Aurora and the injured among the fields, and she lifted off to return.

            Songs were sung. Wounds were tended. Graves were dug. Maleficent and her people lent their magic to fulfillment of each task. The sun was rising when they finished, and all began to disband and make their way to their homes. Queen Aurora was still among the fields in her bloodied armor. She came to Maleficent's side.

            "Ride with us to the castle," Aurora asked, and Maleficent conceded.

            The streets were lined with a cheering crowd. The people lay flowers on the road before them. Maleficent walked beside Aurora's horse, and children ran to touch her long cloak and her staff. Even their parents looked at Maleficent with adoration as much as fear, for tales of the battle were already spreading. The Queen's Dragon, they called her, and Maleficent laughed.

            A great breakfast was laid out, and Maleficent took a seat at Aurora's right hand. The relief among the company was as delicious as the food. When at last, the serving trays were emptied, all retired to find baths and beds. Aurora was ushered away to her own bath, and Maleficent went out to stand upon a high turret. Aurora returned far sooner than she would have imagined, wearing a simple dress of elegant fabric.

            "Will you rest here?" Aurora asked her, as she came and leaned her arms on the turret wall, clearly exhausted.

            "I will return to the Moors," Maleficent said.

            Aurora stood near her, no longer worried over her iron armor. She reached to take Maleficent's hand. She was heavy with reticence.

            "Thank you. We will always be in your debt," Aurora said.

            "Didn't I promise you that no harm should come to you as long as I live?" Maleficent said, and they shared a smile.

            Aurora's smile faded quickly, however. Maleficent could feel an openness and a tenderness in Aurora now that their duty was finished. They had hardly spoken at all, though the bond between them had been rekindled in the fires of adversity.

            "You intend the deep Moors?" Aurora asked softly, and Maleficent considered her in the silence.

            "How could you know of that?" Maleficent asked.

            Aurora remained quiet. She then turned to face the doors before speaking to ensure that no one was listening.

            "I have dreams at times. Always the same situation – a crossroads where I or someone close to me must make a pivotal decision. And I see something of what happens if those divergent choices are made," Aurora said, and she considered Maleficent's astonished expression and shrugged with a little smile. "I think some of your magic stayed with me. My sleep is certainly not common sleep."

            "Do others know of your gift?" Maleficent asked, and Aurora scoffed.

            "I may be a queen, but any sign that I possess magic would spark hysterics. They probably would decide that I was you in disguise," Aurora laughed.  

            "And you have seen my choice to go to the deep Moors in such a dream?" Maleficent asked, and Aurora nodded gravely.

            "If you pass into the deep Moors, you will not return. And I will never see you again," Aurora said.

            They both considered their parting in silence. Maleficent took the ever-shining pendant from around her neck. She placed this in Aurora's hand.

            "I think this rightly belongs to you," Maleficent said and saw at once that Aurora did not understand. "The light has grown as your love has grown. I believe your aunts may have missed the mark when they cast their spell."

            Aurora's eyebrow lifted, and Maleficent got a sense of a slightly offended look that emerged in her expression. She grasped the necklace in her palm and looked out over the lands beneath them. Then Aurora laughed.

            "You don't believe that my love for you could have survived the distance between us. You're wrong. I love you more with each passing year, as I see this kingdom transformed for the good. None of that would have been possible without you.

            "You disrupted my grandfather's rule and then Stefan's, undermining the mystique built up about our kings. You kept the Moors free from their tyranny, and whatever your intent, you allowed me to be raised free among the borderlands. I don't regret your curse at all.

            "Perhaps you should know that King Roland intended to marry me even if I remained in enchanted sleep. He made it clear to Stefan in letters between them. Stefan believed that your curse would thus have failed, as his royal line would continue on despite my own living death. That is how little kings thought of me. You were the only one who believed that I could truly be a queen, that I had something of great value to offer the world, and that I did not have to submit to anyone. My wisdom has deepened with my age, and my love for you deepens along with it."

            They were quiet. Maleficent did not know what to say. She felt that Aurora mistook her for someone else.  

            "I'll tell you another secret that no one else knows," Aurora said, very tired and vulnerable. "When I turned eighteen, I swore to myself that I would never marry any man unless what I felt for him proved equal to what I already felt for you. I knew myself to be both foolish and romantic when I was younger, and I knew it might be unwise to demand so much of my life. But as the years passed, the vow only became more sacred to me. Unless I found the same respect, the same trust, and the same passion, I would not marry. And so I never have.

            "I suppose I never stopped being a foolish romantic," Aurora went on. "I had hoped one day to call you from out the mid Moors by telling you that I was leaving the throne and coming at last to live among the Moors. Perhaps other girls dream of a prince who will take them away from their present lives, and perhaps other women dream of a man who will treat them as an equal. I have only ever dreamed of you.

            "I know by now that I will never stop wanting you," Aurora finished, "And I will also never try to convince you to feel the same. I want you to find whatever you want and need in this world in order to be truly happy, as happy as I have been when among the Moors. If that means that I will lose you forever, then I must wish it so. But I feel I must ask you to stay, unless your heart calls you into the deep Moors. I want to see you again someday – everyday to be honest. I always want you."

            Aurora stood back and considered Maleficent's expression. She recognized a trapped, panicked look in Maleficent's glancing stare. Aurora rubbed her brow and wished she had said less. She turned back to look out at the lands beyond, and she neither flinched nor turned when she heard Maleficent lift into the air. Instead, she watched Maleficent fade into the distance and pass away to the Moors.


	6. A light ever-burning unseen

            In the solitude of her rooms, high in the northwards facing tower, Aurora sat in her shirtsleeves beside a roaring fire. Her ornate armor was forgotten for the day, neatly waiting on cushions within her main dressing room. The clutter of the other rooms contrasted the simplicity of the sleeping room where she sat – the one room she kept truly for herself. No one else ever entered this room. She kept it tidied herself, everything as she had left it. At times, being here above the noise of the castle below and without the trappings of her position, she almost felt as if she were home again in the borderlands between the kingdom and the Moors.

            Only her dogs were allowed in this place. All of her hounds were content and sleeping curled into chairs with thick cushions dotted around the fireplace, near enough to catch the warmth and far enough away not to singe their fur. Cold wind faintly rattled the windowpanes and doors to her balcony, and the warmth from the fire rolled through the room and left no room for the chill winds.  

            The perfect sphere of the diadem shone in her palm, lit from deep within. She imagined the jewel glinting in the dark of night amidst the mid Moors, lying against the skin beside Maleficent's heart. Aurora knew that Maleficent's chest bore no ornament now, and she felt that emptiness aching in her own chest. She thought that perhaps Maleficent at last felt truly free and placed the diadem on her mantel to burn through this night as quietly as it would on every other after this, as exceedingly rare as it was inconsequential, and turned away.

            Echo lifted her head, and Aurora's attention instinctively followed hers. As she rose soundlessly from her chair and moved to the balcony doors, the other hounds sat up startled to follow her lead. Aurora followed her as well and opened the balcony doors to her perked ears. Echo stepped outside and sniffed the cold wind that blew her fur and made Aurora wrap her arms about herself. No one could reach them this high, and so Aurora felt no fear. Echo's ears went flat against her head, and she titled her head back and released a low howl. The hair rose on Aurora's arms at the ethereal sound that reminded her in a sense deeper than sound of her childhood near the barricaded Moors.

            Her spirit felt vividly alive and wild, intrigued and humbled. She found the familiar feeling delicious. A shadow blocked out the light of the moon, and then Aurora watched a form she would never mistake for any other swoop down swiftly then pull up at the last moment to land softly on the stones of the balcony before her. A silhouette of horns and wings against the moonlit sky washed across Aurora's mind, a vision she would always remember.

            The dogs were crowding about Maleficent's legs, keeping calm out of a sense of duty and respect for her, as Maleficent stepped into the light spilling from Aurora's sleeping room. A heavy silence overcame Aurora's desire to speak, so that she merely stood with her back against one of the open doors. She held up her hand to invite Maleficent inside, and she followed the others and made fast the door behind them. When she turned around, Maleficent was glancing at her over her shoulder and turned towards the fire.

            The dogs all settled, and Aurora came near. She still did not know what to say. Her heart seemed enlarged with joy or grief, she could not yet say, and its beating pulsed in her chest such that she nearly brought her hand to shield it like some wound. She meant to cross back to her seat by the fire, but Maleficent turned to see her when she drew closer. Her expression strikingly mirrored how Aurora felt, open and yet nearly overcome, as tender and vulnerable as it was uncertain.

            "I'd like my necklace back, if you don't mind," Maleficent said.

            Perhaps she had meant her tone to come out with the same casual authority as usual. If so, she failed. Her voice seemed hushed, vulnerable, a little abashed even. As she considered her closely, Aurora believed that she could see Maleficent's breath quickened, her heart beating hard. That could not be caused by flight, even in winds far worse than those that moved across their lands tonight. Aurora crossed over at once to take up the necklace from the mantelpiece where it sat shining in a silent pronouncement of a love both endurant and unwavering.

            She turned again, and their eyes met. A gesture must serve Aurora where her words would not, and she moved with grace arisen from a kind of reverence. She stepped behind Maleficent, who titled her head forward and turned slightly to the side. Aurora placed the necklace around Maleficent's neck and fastened the clasp to let it rest in its rightful place. One of Maleficent's wings shifted and touched Aurora's hand, and Aurora felt herself nearly start with the thrill caused by the touch and the startled sense of having committed an accidental intrusion. Maleficent's voice spoke suddenly.

            "Tell me the truth," she said.

            "Always," Aurora responded at once.

            Maleficent turned and considered Aurora, her body still halfway turned away. Her wings had cupped the heat from the fire, and Aurora felt a pool of cold air around her own body mingling with warm air. A tension made the silence between them sing like iron pulled across a smooth sharpening stone.

            "Has it dimmed since I went away?" Maleficent asked.

            "No. Of course not," Aurora said.

            Maleficent considered Aurora closely then turned away. The quiet between them made Aurora close her eyes to tolerate the longing she felt to find the way to speak, the way to act that would reveal the truth in her words to Maleficent. That was beyond her control, she knew. She wished that it could be simple between them – that she might simply reach out and touch her.

            Instead they stood in silence. Aurora did not know what to she might do or say. Maleficent's thoughts were as mysterious to her as all the deep places of magic in this world.

            "Touch me," Maleficent said, still facing away.

            Her voice came soft enough and frail enough that Aurora wondered for a moment if she had imagined hearing these words. The feathers at the tips of Maleficent's wings shivered, and they pulled instinctively tighter around her body. And Aurora knew that the words she heard had been real.

            Aurora's heart had always been brave, and so she stepped closer at once, soft and careful in the way she moved as she drew near Maleficent. She slid the fingertips of her right hand gently along the feathers of one wing. She made the same movement again and allowed her fingers to slip down along the shafts with the grain of the delicate feathering. The softness of Maleficent's feathers belied their strength. Aurora brought both hands then to the trace the long lines of the tops of Maleficent's wings, and a new instinct arose at her touch that made Maleficent's wings lower and open out to match Aurora's hands. The feel of this relaxation almost made Aurora sway forward in relief. Once her own arms were extended and still far from the tips of Maleficent's wings, she brought them back to rest on the joints where the wings joined her back. She leaned in to kiss the place where the left wing met her back, behind her heart. At the touch of her mouth in this delicate place that had carried a terrible wound so many years ago now, Aurora felt Maleficent's wings quiver and her breath come out in a sigh.

            Aurora took her mouth away, as she brought her hands under Maleficent's wings and her arms to come to her chest and hold the two of them close. Maleficent's wings pulled back, and her hands came over Aurora's. She could feel Maleficent's breath moving under her hands and the faint impression of her heartbeat. They stood in this embrace, quiet for a long time.

            When Aurora let go and stepped around from behind Maleficent, believing this to be enough to satisfy what Maleficent asked of her, Maleficent seemed at first surprised and then she smiled a little. Aurora had to wonder what she had expected, probably some greedy and impatient touch, and the idea nearly made her shrug in dismissal.

            The dogs were settled, and Aurora sat herself down on the thick rug before the fire. She looked up at Maleficent, who sat, as well, in response, with her wings stretched out behind her. After a time in stillness, Maleficent broke the silence between them once more.

            "Ha… have you already seen everything that's going to happen between us?" Maleficent asked.

            Aurora sat thinking, uncertain of what she was being asked.  

            "Did you know precisely the way to get me to come to you?" Maleficent asked more pointedly, and Aurora realized that Maleficent meant her dreams.

            "No," Aurora answered her in clear surprise. "That is not how it works. The dreams come rarely, and they are never so precise. It's only in dire situations that I gain an impression of diverging outcomes, as flashes or a sense of what will happen."

            The two of them considered one another in silence for a time. Then Aurora laughed.

            "Are you afraid of my magic?" Aurora said in astonishment, her tone quite teasing.

            Maleficent had to laugh, as well. She wrapped her arms around her knees, and Aurora reached over to touch one faintly. Her guard had finally lowered. The familiar ease that returned between them made Aurora sigh with relief. They were quiet, and Maleficent looked about the room.

            "This is an awfully plain room for a queen's bedchamber," Maleficent said.

            "It's simple," Aurora said fondly, as Maleficent looked over her shoulder and considered the enormous bed that stood the only grand luxury in the room.

            "Did you have that giant bed made special to fit all your dogs?" Maleficent said, poking a bit of fun at her.

            Aurora smiled and merely shrugged. The dogs did not lift their heads, not knowing that they were the topic of discussion. They slept as if they were worn to the bone after a perfectly common day.

            After she made her tease, Maleficent's face softened. She considered Aurora closely and with such love that Aurora's own body filled with the delicious sensation of being seen in such a way. Maleficent reached out to her, and Aurora took her hand in both her own. She moved gracefully onto her knees, so that she could bend down to bring her lips against the back of Maleficent's hand. She turned her hand over to kiss her palm. When she looked up, Maleficent's eyes were heavy, her lips parted, clearly in response to the sensation of the touch.

            Maleficent caught both of Aurora's hands in her own and pulled her closer. She kissed Aurora's hands in return, and her breath came over them with a potency and heat that poured down Aurora's forearms and reminded her most vividly of the dragon on the battle field not so many days before. She brought her body even closer to Maleficent's, such that they leaned their foreheads together and held to one another's arms.

            The same living heat of magic flowed down Aurora's neck into her chest as Maleficent turned her face and kissed her on the cheek. She turned her face and kissed Maleficent's cheek in return, then she placed a kiss just at the corner of her mouth. They both moved to bring their lips to begin to touch, and even the first gentle and faint kiss between them caused the fire to crack and rise even as the glass in the windows and the stones of the castle beneath them rumbled faintly.  


End file.
